marseille
/mɑː(ɹ)ˈseɪ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.24 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
The capital city of Bouches-du-Rhône department, France; the capital city of the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.
name
A surname from French.
Etymology
Borrowed from French Marseille (supplanting earlier Marseilles, derived from the Old French nominative form), from Latin Massilia, Marsilia, from Ancient Greek Μασσαλία (Massalía), probably from a pre-Latin language of Italy, perhaps Ancient Ligurian mas (“spring”). The r was probably retained from Arabic مَرْسَى (marsā, “harbor”).
Origin
- Source language: Latin